Fairy Story
by Tiamat's Child
Summary: Seishirou has a tale to tell.


Title: Fairy Story

Author: Tiamat's Child

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Drama

Characters: Subaru, Seishirou

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.

Summary: Seishirou has a tale to tell.

Note: Everything Seishirou says about the tale is true. I'm not making this stuff up. 

P.S. Despite the title, this has *nothing* to do with the childhood challenge. *Nothing*. And you don't want it to. Trust me on that.

Fairy Story

Tiamat's Child

"Do you know the story of Red Riding Hood, Subaru-Kun?" Seishirou asks the question lightly, but somehow Subaru knows that it isn't as causal as he pretends. They are walking through a small park near Seishirou's office. It isn't very much of a park, not being anything more then a triangle of grassy land with a few lonely looking trees that have the vague air of lawyers plunked mapless into a virgin forest, but it's good enough for a quick walk after a lunch date.

Subaru smiles brightly, turning his face up to Seishirou's like a daisy turning up to the sun at midday. "Of course I know it Seishirou-San. Why?"

"I'd like to tell it to you, but I don't want you to be bored by something you know too well for it to be interesting."

"No!" Subaru shakes his head vehemently, feeling that worryingly familiar rush of nervousness and happiness that seems to always fill him when he's around Seishirou. "I never get tired of stories. I'd love to listen to whatever you want to tell me.

Seishirou smiles a smile that has a nasty hint of blood against marble steps behind it. Subaru doesn't notice, of course, he's too busy blushing as hot as those little spicy candies that Hokuto loves so much and desperately looking anywhere but at his companion. "The red hood was an invention of Charles Perrault, from the eighteenth century. The happy endings are also later additions. The story I am going to tell you is an original version."

Hokuto might well stop this right here, were she on this outing, for she knows far more about this sort of thing then her brother. Enough to catch what Seishirou is talking about, perhaps, enough to know that this tale shouldn't be told like this. But she isn't here. Instead she is off with a friend somewhere, probably happily gorging on ice cream and shopping for fancy soaps. So Subaru smiles and nods and Seishirou tells his tale.

"A little girl was sent to bring milk and bread to her grandmother. As she walked she met a wolf, who asked her where she was going.

'To Grandmother's house.' She said.

The wolf ran ahead and arrived at the house first. He killed the old woman, poured her blood into a bottle and sliced her flesh onto a plate. Then he got into her nightclothes and crawled into her bed to wait.

Knock. Knock.

'Come in, my dear.'

'I've brought you bread and milk, Grandmother.'

'Have some food yourself child. There's wine and meat in the pantry.'"

Subaru sucks in a little gasp of breath, his whole body going rigid and pale. Seishirou smiles to himself, hiding the expression from his young companion behind an artfully careless hand. Subaru really is predictable sometimes.

"The little girl ate what was offered. As she did so a small cat said, 'Slut! To drink the blood and eat the flesh of your grandmother!'

Then the wolf said, 'Undress and get into bed with me.

'What shall I do with my skirt?'

'Throw it on the fire, you won't need it anymore.'

For each garment the girl asked that question, and for each garment she received the same answer, 'Throw it on the fire, you won't need it anymore.'

When the girl had got into bed she said, 'Grandmother, how hairy you are.'

'It keeps me warm, my dear.'

'Oh grandmother, how long your nails are.'

'They are for scratching myself.'

'Oh Grandmother, what big teeth you have.'

'They are for eating you.'

And the wolf ate her."

Subaru stares at Seishirou, waiting for him to continue, to finish the story. He doesn't, just stands there watching Subaru with that gaze of his that makes the boy feel like he does when Hokuto pulls out her measuring tape and starts making comments about how his clothes have gotten a bit short in the arm and leg lately. Finally Subaru says, "Isn't there more?"

"No." Seishirou shakes his head slowly. "I told you, the happy endings are later additions."

Subaru shudders. "Seishirou-San, that's *horrible*."

"Yes," says Seishirou. "It is. The European pheasants certainly knew how to tell a gruesome tale." Subaru blinks, feeling something in himself harden. His fingers twitch, forming the loose outlines of fists.

"Why did you tell me that story?" He asks. Seishirou doesn't answer at first, instead he steps closer. Subaru tries to take a step backward, and finds that he is backed up against a tree he would be willing to swear wasn't there five minutes ago. Seishirou braces himself against the tree and leans in till he's far too close for Subaru's comfort. They'd look like lovers sharing secret promises to any passer-by who happened to see them.

"Beware of wolves, Subaru-Kun." Seishirou murmurs, his lips moving near the shell of Subaru's outer ear, his voice soft and low and husky.

"Are you a wolf?" Subaru doesn't know where the words come from. It doesn't seem to really be his question, though he is the one asking it.

"Perhaps." Seishirou looks as if he is about to laugh, but there is something thoughtful around his eyes as well. "What do you think?"

Subaru shakes his head. He doesn't know. He doesn't think he really knows much of anything that is relevant at this point.

Seishirou raises one of Subaru's gloved hands and the boy's thoughts short out, wandering off somewhere like unguarded sheep. "Throw those gloves on the fire Subaru-Kun," Seishirou murmurs against the fabric as he kisses Subaru's knuckles. "You won't be needing them any more." Subaru can feel a surge of liquid, living heat across the backs of his palms. He thinks that if he could see his skin it would have patterns burned into it by that heat, as if traceries of fire had rushed across the pale hands, branding them with inverted pentacles that glow with a strange light. Magical symbols, something that ought to be familiar and, but is still just...Not right. Wrong somehow, the way this whole moment is wrong and strange and easily the scariest thing he can remember ever happening to him.

Seishirou smiles at the expression on Subaru's face, a little pain, a little bit of something that bears some resemblance to desire, and rather a lot of fear, but mainly simple shock. He turns, striding away, calling back over his shoulder, "I have to be going, some of my patients have appointments I need to keep." Subaru doesn't see the smirk that twists the edges of the handsome mouth up. "I'll see you this evening Subaru-Kun."

Subaru doesn't reply, just leans against the tree, staring down at his hands. He tries to make sense of whatever it was that just happened to him, his eyes latched on the black fabric of his gloves. He thinks he'll fall if he looks up or tries to stand without the help of the rough bark digging into his back.

He doesn't understand. He's too shaky to move. He has that shivery, floaty feeling that comes when he's done too much magic in too short of a time. It seems almost as if he's lost in a fever, or caught in a nightmare.

There was something strange in Seishirou's voice, something in his eyes that was different. Off somehow. It wasn't right and it scared him, left him shaky and disoriented, just as the story had. Whatever it was that he saw he hasn't seen it before, and it worries him.

But Subaru is a master at wishing away things he desperately wants to not be true. It doesn't take long for him to convince himself that he imagined it, that it was only the way the story put him off balance, that made him think that he was seeing something new, something disturbing. He closes his eyes to the clues he is given.

He'll just keep choking down blood, all the while telling himself it's wine.


End file.
